Downtown Dayton Improvements. Any ideas?

I think that Downtown Dayton could be improved if the following issues were addressed or done:

• Safety issues - Regular police and/or security patrols and cameras.

• Survey the citizens of Dayton to find out what improvements they would like to see to the Downtown Dayton area and work to implement those ideas, if they are feasible.

• Homeless problem - Find a way to get the homeless off of the streets and into temporary housing where their problems can be assessed and dealt with (treatment for mentally ill; treatment for drug or alcohol addiction; job training; counseling; housing).

• Teenagers - Keep teenagers from congregating Downtown and causing trouble (police patrols; school buses taking high schoolers directly from their neighborhoods to their schools and back without stopping Downtown; enforcing truancy laws; etc.).

• City beautification project - Fix up or tear down abandoned buildings; clean up areas that are neglected or dirty; etc.

• Parking - Make sure there is adequate parking for all areas Downtown and that parking garages are kept safe by having security patrols and cameras watching them at all times.

• Businesses – Find out what types of business would work best in the Downtown area, and work to entice those kinds of businesses to locate Downtown.

• Partnerships with city government, local businesses, and educational institutions to find ways to create jobs and to provide opportunities for entrepreneurship in the Downtown Dayton area.

• Co-op and internships for high school and college students in the area.

Overall, I think these ideas could help to make Downtown a safer, cleaner, and more prosperous place, and some of these ideas may even create jobs in security, construction, clean up, counseling, and training instructors, to name a few.

Also, if new businesses locate Downtown, they would provide even more jobs for Dayton residence.

What ideas do you have in regards to how the
Downtown Dayton area could be improved?

It would help if our courts would stop playing games with criminals. Seriously. Montgomery County courts, and especially Dayton Municipal, are an absolute joke. Go to a Greene County court and watch how they handle things compared to how Dayton does. Big difference.

I think that unless you address the perception of safety downtown, everything else is a moot point. People aren't going to go somewhere they don't feel safe.

M14PIG wrote:

It would help if our courts would stop playing games with criminals. Seriously. Montgomery County courts, and especially Dayton Municipal, are an absolute joke. Go to a Greene County court and watch how they handle things compared to how Dayton does. Big difference.
I think that unless you address the perception of safety downtown, everything else is a moot point. People aren't going to go somewhere they don't feel safe.

I agree.

Safety is one of the primary concerns that
most people would have about locating businesses
Downtown or visiting Downtown, which is why some of my recommendations listed above include the safety issue.

Thanks for posting your opinion.
I hope a lot of other people post
here and generate a good discussion
about Downtown Dayton and how it can be improved.

I believe that most people who live in or around
the Dayton area would benefit from a thriving
developed Downtown area, but that will never
happen if most people are not involved in making
Downtown a nice place to work, eat, shop, live, be entertained, and do business.

Local government, businesses, and the citizens of Dayton have to all be involved or else any plans that are discussed will probably fall short in regards to making any real significant improvements to the Downtown area.

I think another good idea to help Dayton is to simply sack the mayor, city commissioners, and city manager. Replace them with Republicans, Democrats, Independants, I don't care. This group is inept, and its no wonder the city workforce won't take a pay freeze. The city manager said he's taking a pay freeze, but will still be getting nice fat yearly "bonuses". How are we supposed to take this guy seriously?

As for the Mayor and City Commission, get real. They decided to spend 100k at an out of state advertising agency to create a logo and slogan for our city- "Dayton Patented, Originals wanted". Uh...why? Now I see the city is advertising its water, telling citizens to drink tap water. Again....why?

Bring in 10,000 attractive healthy young childless sexy sweet single friendly-female immigrants and illegal aliens to do the womanly duties that American-citizen women will not longer do, at least cheaply or free, for me and mankind, without bitching and whining. U.S. women just can't, don't or won't willingly compete in the local service retail-tail economy, since the Government is their daddy and mommy, like Obomy.

M14PIG wrote:

I think another good idea to help Dayton is to simply sack the mayor, city commissioners, and city manager. Replace them with Republicans, Democrats, Independants, I don't care. This group is inept, and its no wonder the city workforce won't take a pay freeze. The city manager said he's taking a pay freeze, but will still be getting nice fat yearly "bonuses". How are we supposed to take this guy seriously?
As for the Mayor and City Commission, get real. They decided to spend 100k at an out of state advertising agency to create a logo and slogan for our city- "Dayton Patented, Originals wanted". Uh...why? Now I see the city is advertising its water, telling citizens to drink tap water. Again....why?

You have raised some excellent points here.
Unfortunately, I do not keep informed about
local politics as much as I should.

However, I will say that in general I believe that
if political officials are ineffective or unwilling to work to make things better, then they should be replaced by those who will and can.

Too many times politicians of all parties think more about their own careers or ambitions than they do of the well being of the city, state, or country.

I do agree that Republicans, Democrats, and Independents should be involved in making the city and the Downtown area more vibrant because we all are in this together, and often
times a project of this size can benefit from diverse opinions.

Also, I am a firm believer in finding out what the average ordinary citizens think about what can be done to make things better because we sometimes have a clearer view of the situation than many politicians do, and they can benefit from our input a great deal.

I agree, our city is flying without a pilot. We were ranked one of the 10th fastest dying cities in the country, but have we heard about the cities leadership doing anything to make it better, or to secure new economic growth? I stayed home sick from work one day and watched a city council meeting with the mayor and her cohorts and it was shameful at best. I am a small business owner and i cant believe that they would conduct the business of our city in such a fashion. after all the city and its government are in essence a small business and one that is failing miserably. There are no programs that i have found to even get the community of business's that are outside government usefulness to get involved or get help. the cities government is more or less hidden from plain sight. one has to go looking and digging to find any information on them or their polices or actions both past and current.

we need to bring business down town, we need to get people involved in the community, offer them reasons to use the down town area. The greene was built and opened in the last few years, opened by a out of city development firm. this whole complex is a fake version of a down town shopping complex. This is prime example of something that should have been invited to down town and implemented possibly as part of the failing riverscape project that when i was in high school was supposed to be the citys next biggest thing.

Take the proposed arena and put it downtown. To have a good downtown you need good entertainment and good eateries and good housing. That will bring in more people wanting to live downtown. Spreading everything around is just to bring in revenue and not to revitalize.

Now if they had taken the Greens and put it downtown that would have been perfect. The same developer did a smaller version in Pittsburgh in a section of the city. It has the same shops as the Greens and is doing great.

Also put in there a lite rail system. Connect it to the suburbs again like it was don in the early 1900's.

Chicago has rail in every suburb. Its great to go to a ball game...have some beers...take the rail home and walk or get picked up to your house. Cuts down on DUI

There are not enough nice white prosperous civilized suburbanites to support and maintain the Dayton Welfare State or Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; because of this new global-baloney low-wage part-time temporary seasonal cheap-labor free-trader foreign-aider open-border world-citizen service-and-retail economy that does not need those old factories and blue-collar dollars to succeed. And ain't it gonna be nifty when everybody starts getting thrifty? Because, most folks really have more than enough cheap Chinese stuff, and need no more, regardless of these Madison Avenue and advertising media whores who want to keep us going to the stores. Government takes taxes but does not pay taxes.

Jack wrote:

Now if they had taken the Greens and put it downtown that would have been perfect. The same developer did a smaller version in Pittsburgh in a section of the city. It has the same shops as the Greens and is doing great.
Also put in there a lite rail system. Connect it to the suburbs again like it was don in the early 1900's.
Chicago has rail in every suburb. Its great to go to a ball game...have some beers...take the rail home and walk or get picked up to your house. Cuts down on DUI

I think two of the big concerns about putting
businesses, stores, and shops in the Downtown
Dayton area are safety issues like crime and
convenience issues like parking, etc.

If those two issues are addressed, then I think
putting something like the Greens Downtown would be perfect.

Your idea about the lite rail system may address
some of the parking issues. Interesting idea.

If they had brought something like The Greene downtown, it would be a disaster.

One possible solution would be to do away with the RTA hub.

M14PIG wrote:

If they had brought something like The Greene downtown, it would be a disaster.
One possible solution would be to do away with the RTA hub.

Why?

Leadership in Dayton is an embarassment. I have never seen a worse Mayor. She needs to go ASAP so that Dayton can mend. The policies of the current city government do not work, have made things worse, and have made Dayton one of the worst cities in the nation.

People in Dayton have voted for what they wanted and now they have it. It will take at least a decade to repair the damage. There is nothing in Dayton today. It really is VERY sad!

M14PIG wrote:

If they had brought something like The Greene downtown, it would be a disaster.
One possible solution would be to do away with the RTA hub.

I think putting something like the Greene in the Downtown area would have been a disaster, if some of the issues we have been talking about on this thread were not addressed first (safety issues, parking issues, etc.).

I also think that the congestion of traffic and people would have been an issue, but that could be addressed by carefully considering where to put stores and perhaps a redesign of some aspects of the Downtown area.

In regards to the hub, maybe several hubs strategically placed around the Downtown area might help to cut down on the congestion problem of having it in one place. Of course, there needs to be enough security measures taken to keep
the hubs safe.

One good thing about the Downtown area is that there are already existing buildings that can be renovated or cleaned up to open stores, shops, etc. so there would not have to be that much new construction of buildings. I think the Arcade building could be put to good use too.

Once again, I think it is very important to involve Dayton citizens in the planning and implementation of improving the Downtown area because when people are a part of the solutions they tend to be less likely to be a part of the problem, and they tend to have more of a sense of pride in something they helped to make happen. Also, the jobs that could be created would help too.

Bernie wrote:

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Why?

Because it would reduce the mass of people who loiter around, fight each other, and harass people who are downtown for legitimate reasons (like working).

M14PIG wrote:

<quoted text>
Because it would reduce the mass of people who loiter around, fight each other, and harass people who are downtown for legitimate reasons (like working).

That is surely a problem to be addressed.

Private security and police patrols could alleviate some of the issues of bad behavior, as well as criminal activity. I do believe that if the police force had an outreach program in which they met with citizens to talk about these issues,
that would help to bring the community into
the discussion of how to cut down on loitering,
fighting, and other bad behavior.

Maybe RTA could place 2 or 3 hubs in areas where they can be monitored and so that the congestion problem at one single hub could be alleviated.

Also, I don't know if high school students are still being dropped off Downtown or not, but if they are that should stop. The school system and RTA should work out a deal where special buses are assigned to take students directly from their neighborhoods to their schools and back to their neighborhoods, with no drop off points Downtown, and truancy laws should be enforced.

Another problem might be the homeless. Perhaps
we could create a program that would get them
off of the streets and into shelters where their
problems could be addressed and dealt with
on an individual basis (treatment for drug or alcohol addiction; mental illness, job training, etc.). It may cost some money, but if it kept the homeless off of the streets it would help to alleviate some of the problems on the street, as well as possibly turning some people’s lives around for the better.

Cleaning up Downtown Dayton and making it a nice, safe, enjoyable place to work, eat, live, and be entertained is a big job that would probably take
several years to be realized, but with persistence and everyone working together, it is possible. We are just brainstorming and expressing our ideas on this thread.

Just imagine if the whole city (citizens, politicians, law enforcement, educational institutions, churches, parents, students, etc.) were talking about ideas and coming up with plans. With the right leadership to guide this process, Dayton could
become a thriving, productive, and nice place to be.

We need some senoritas who treat us sweeter and do it cheaper!

IkeLike wrote:

<quoted text>
Private security and police patrols could alleviate some of the issues of bad behavior, as well as criminal activity. I do believe that if the police force had an outreach program in which they met with citizens to talk about these issues,
that would help to bring the community into
the discussion of how to cut down on loitering,
fighting, and other bad behavior.

Not to be a killjoy, but we've tried it. We're not getting any real support from the city commissioners, the courts, or the community.

If you have a strong police presence at Third and Main, it all of the sudden gets turned into a racial issue. The city needs to get over this. We either solve the Third and Main issue, or we continue to give businesses and shoppers a good reason to stay away from downtown Dayton.

Oh, and smooth move on buying Mendelson's. This is a prospering business that has been in Dayton for DECADES. The city buys the property, sending the business out of Dayton, and soon (if not already), it will be a vacant lot. Not much revenue going to be generated from that.

While I'm typing away furiously, let me tell you something else....Tech Town is a pipe dream. You know that bridge to nowhere we hear about in Alaska? Tech Town is Dayton's bridge to nowhere. Its all smoke and mirrors, a pipe dream meant to distract people from the miserable failings of our Mayor and her rubber stamp squad.